The adventures of Shannon, jack of all trades, Master of Arts. Keep up with me on my crazy excursions and outrageously lucky encounters as they happen instead of waiting for the memoirs.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Playing Catch-up

I'm realizing I never gave a whole lot of detail about any of my trip to Europe. I posted the photos and had one general entry about it, but no stories or memories, or play-by-plays. So, I'm going to try and commit a few entries to looking back and telling some stories about my time overseas.

Poland Train Station Search

After my four days in Stockholm, I flew into Poznan Poland via Warsaw to spend two delightful days with Kathy, my friend from undergrad who is now attending med school in Poland. At the end of my visit, I had to find my way to the train station in Poznan to go on my 14 hour adventure to Friedrichshafen, Germany and meet up with Lisa. Well, my train left at 2:25pm on Wednesday; Kathy had class beginning at 1pm. So, I was on my own to get to the train, but no worries: she bought me a tram ticket, showed me the stop I got on at, and, even though she didn't know the exact stop I got off at, she described the trip I would have and gave me an idea of what to look for.

No problem, right?

Well, enter life. I get to the tram station and there are a lot of people standing there. Usually a good sign. However, I look down the road and see that there is a tram sitting there with its lights blinking. The tram was not operating.

Poop.

Ok, so, I'm in Poznan, Poland. I don't speak Polish; no one in this relatively small town speaks English. It's not a touristy place and there are no maps available anywhere. I have no idea where the train station is, just that I needed to take the tram there. I have about an hour at this point until my train leaves, and, even if I knew where I needed to walk, I have no idea if it's a hour walk or less.

Big poop.

Well, whatcha gonna do? I decided to just walk in the direction I was to take the tram, follow the tracks, and, whenever I got to a place where the tracks split off in multiple directions, I would just wait for the tram I was supposed to take (the 2) to come from the other direction so I could see which way to walk. I knew this would work for a certain amount of time, but I also knew (from Kathy's instruction) that I would not be able to see the train station from the tram stop even when I got to it. So, basically I just felt it out until it seemed like I was in the right place, strayed from the tracks, and miraculously found it.